This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in carving devices and methods, and, more particularly, to a device and a method for creating a design in a transparent substrate through a routing action.
For many years, glass objects having carving on one or more of the faces thereof have become quite popular and are often referred to as "carved crystal". This carved crystal and similar forms of glass objects having designs carved in the surfaces thereof are prepared in various commercial operations and are commercially available. In addition to those carved crystal objects which are prepared on a mass production operation, there are also various carved crystal objects which are hand carved by an artisan skilled in the art of carving glass and similar substrates.
In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the so-called "do-it-yourself" kits which are also commercially available and enable an individual to perform the carving of a design in a crystal or similar glass or other transparent substrate. Generally, these do-it-yourself kits contain a hand-held cutting device which has a rotatable cutting tip. Typically, this hand-held cutting device includes a hand-grippable housing containing an electric motor and which is battery energized and capable of rotating the cutting tip. In this way, the user of the device can engage the surface of the glass or similar substrate and carve the design as desired in this substrate. However, this form of cutting requires a great degree of skill, and the results achieved by those relatively uninitiated in the art of cutting glass are very poor. Heretofore, there has not been any device or method, either commercially available or even proposed, which permits the relatively unskilled individual to carve glass and similar transparent objects on a relatively efficient basis.
It is therefore the primary object of the present invention to provide a device for cutting transparent substrates through a routing action and which permits the user of the device to move the transparent substrate with respect to a cutting element carried by the device in a precise manner to thereby create a design in a transparent substrate.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a device of the type stated which permits the user of the device to apply a design pattern to a surface of the substrate and thereby move the substrate with respect to a cutting element in accordance with the design pattern.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a device of the type stated which is capable of having different types of cutting elements on the device to thereby create different forms of design carvings in the surface of the substrate.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a device of the type stated which is highly effective in its operation and durable in its construction.
It is another salient object of the present invention to provide a method of creating a design pattern in a transparent substrate by an individual relatively unskilled in the art of carving glass and similar forms of transparent substrates.
With the above and other objects in view, our invention resides in the novel features of form, construction, arrangement and combination of parts presently described and pointed out in the claims.